UC Application, 5 week wait time - financial hardship! Some questions.

katesheet

Universal Credit Application, 5 week wait = financial hardship! Some questions.

This question is about applying for universal credit, which will replace a claimants ESA and Housing benefit.

a universal credit claim takes 5 weeks to process, from when you submit it.

They say when you apply from ESA and Housing benefit to Universal credit 2 weeks after you apply for
UC then your Housing benefit and ESA stops!.


ESA and HB are paid every 2 weeks. The below is just a simple example.

This means there will be a Gap where you receive NO payment atall, which can be a pain as bills need to be paid,
so the extra money (which will be lost) would come in handy.

Question 1) Does that mean if they take 5 weeks to process and stop your ESA and HB 2 weeks after you apply

then you will lose 3 weeks of your ESA & HB ?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lets take this basic example:

These are made up amounts, and made up dates but it is just for the example.

Here are received amounts of housing benefit (HB) and ESA (ESA)

Feb 1 - HB = £100
Feb 1 - ESA = £100

Feb 14 - HB= £100
Feb 14 - ESA = £100

March 1 - HB = £100
March 1 - ESA = £100

March 14 - HB = £100
March 14 - ESA = £100

I know these amounts are low but it is just an example, and calendar dates are made up.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Question 1) Does that mean if they take 5 weeks to process and stop your ESA and HB 2 weeks after you apply
then you will lose 3 weeks of your ESA & HB ?

so you will only lose 3 weeks of ESA & HB.

2) Using that above example, as ESA & HB will be paid every 2 weeks, does that mean when you apply you will only lose £200  

(£100 & £100)

- That is if you time your application submission correctly  (see question 5 below)

3) From a 'timing' point of view, if the person applies on 2nd Feb (the day after they receive their £200, from 1st Feb)
and as HB and UC will Stop 2 weeks after then this will stop on 16th Feb, so they will STILL receive their £100 & £100 from

14th March.

but will Lose the 1st March £100 & £100. Is that correct?

4) They offer an Advance Payment for you which they pay you in advance but has to be paid back (they remove it in increments

in future payments)

How much can they give for this? maximum?  (using the above example)

5) Would this be correct? ..they say the advance can be upto your full amount of your 1st payment of UC,
so in the above example could that be an advance of £400?


(as UC is paid every month) = £100 x 4, from above example = £400

Could they give an advance of £400?

6) So basically they will only lose £100 & £100 from 1st March, which is one lot of a 2 week array payment. is that correc?

does that mean they will receive their first UC payment on 8 March, so they will lose only £200 (from 1st March)

7) For those of you who have gone through this,  How many 'weeks' did you have this short fall/loss of money?

8) if this caused you financial hardship how did you deal with it? did you get an advance? how much?

9) Any other advice you can provide?

if you can answer as many questions as you can,

and can you answer the questions in 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) format, as best as you can

Thank you xxx

Northern_Wanderer

The advance is up to a max of your UC entitlement and can be repaid over 24 months. Can you afford the repayments? If not, best to try to cut spending on anything non-essential.

Very difficult to read your post with all the line spacing.

katesheet

Northern_Wanderer said:

The advance is up to a max of your UC entitlement and can be repaid over 24 months. Can you afford the repayments? If not, best to try to cut spending on anything non-essential.

Very difficult to read your post with all the line spacing.

thanks. I have adjusted the line spacing.

poppy12345

1/ No, they will not lose 3 weeks of money because they will have their UC payment 5 weeks after their claim is submitted. This payment will be for 1 month's money. 

2/ Question answer above, you're not losing any money. In fact you're gaining because of the run on of Income Related ESA and HB. 

3/ No they will not receive any further payments of Income Related ESA and HB after the 2 week run on. 

4/ and 5/  Question answered in above post. 

6/ No, they will not lose any money because they will have their UC payment, which covers 1 month. This was answered above. 

7/ Again, you will not lose any money, this has been answered in a few points here. 

8/ Many people claim advance payments. I don't know how it would help by asking how much someone else received. It depends on your circumstances how much you think you will need. 

kaMelo

Both are paid in arrears, the ESA payment is for the two previous weeks, not the two upcoming weeks, UC payment is for the previous month, not the upcoming month

As @poppy12345 said, no one is losing anything, you are actually better off due to the 2 week run on when you are in effect receiving double payments.

katesheet

thank you for the responses. I think the thing I forgot to mention is will they backdate it?

if apply UC on 1 date, and it takes 5 weeks for the first payment to be received,  will they backdate it until the day they applied for the UC application?

How does backdating fit into this ?

If no backdating then isn't there a loss /gap of No payment?

If I am wrong (which I am sure I am lol x) ..can you please do an example with numbers and dates, using my above calendar chart dates to explain, as we still don't follow.

and

(( 6/ No, they will not lose any money because they will have their UC payment, which covers 1 month. This was answered above.  ))

This money which covers 1 month, will this be backdated?

katesheet

kaMelo said:

As @poppy12345 said, no one is losing anything, you are actually better off due to the 2 week run on when you are in effect receiving double payments.

If I am wrong (which I am sure I am lol x) .. can you please do an example with numbers and dates, using my above calendar chart dates to explain, as we still don't follow.

I am of the impression there will be a 3-5 week gap, so there will be a 'loss' of payment in that time, unless they backdate?

thanks xxx

nannytone_2

As poppy explained, you gaiin 1 weeks money.
2 weeks AFTER you claim UC you get a further ESA and HB payment.
3 weeks later, you will get a month's UC payment (5 weeks after you made your claim)
So 1 month and 2 weeks money to cover a 5 week period

KxMx

UC is paid one month in arrears. 

An example would be:
You apply 15th February
End of February/beginning of March, you recieve your last payment for hb & esa. 
Your UC Assessment period is 15th February to 14 March
You are paid on 20th March your entitlement for that Assessment Period. 

poppy12345

katesheet said:

kaMelo said:

As @poppy12345 said, no one is losing anything, you are actually better off due to the 2 week run on when you are in effect receiving double payments.

If I am wrong (which I am sure I am lol x) .. can you please do an example with numbers and dates, using my above calendar chart dates to explain, as we still don't follow.

I am of the impression there will be a 3-5 week gap, so there will be a 'loss' of payment in that time, unless they backdate?

thanks xxx

You are not correct. Please read my comment again.  You will not lose out on any money when migrating to UC from another benefit such as ESA and housing benefit. 

kaMelo

katesheet said:

kaMelo said:

As @poppy12345 said, no one is losing anything, you are actually better off due to the 2 week run on when you are in effect receiving double payments.

If I am wrong (which I am sure I am lol x) .. can you please do an example with numbers and dates, using my above calendar chart dates to explain, as we still don't follow.

I am of the impression there will be a 3-5 week gap, so there will be a 'loss' of payment in that time, unless they backdate?

thanks xxx

There is no gap, you are of the mindset that the money received is for the next period coming up, it's not. ESA and UC are paid in arrears, for the period of time just passed. Think back to when you first claimed ESA,  you didn't receive a payment on day one to cover the two weeks coming up, you received it after two weeks to cover the two weeks that have just passed. The same with UC, you don't receive a payment on day one to cover the upcoming month, you receive it after five weeks to cover the previous month.

To put it another way, think of it like a changing jobs. You work for one employer up until the end of January and are paid bi-weekly, then started with a new employer at the beginning of February and are paid monthly. You would receive two weeks pay at the end of January for the work you did in the last two weeks of January. You then start with a new employer in February, you work all month and get paid at the beginning of March for the work you did in February. Next month you would get paid at the beginning of April for the work you did in March ..... rinse and repeat each month.

The two week run on of ESA/HB is akin to your old employer paying you two weeks pay in the middle of February even though you did no work for them in February, hence why you're better off not losing.